Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) is leaving, but not quietly. The immensely unpopular Republicanhas decided to totally trashhis party’s judicial agenda. Flake is the key 11thvote on the Senate Judiciary Committee, and he’s not budging until Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell holds a binding vote on a billprotecting Special Counsel Robert Mueller and the Department of Justice’s Russia investigation. It’s frustrating. It’s deplorable. And it just comes to show you why Flake would never have won re-election if he decided to execute a suicidal banzai charge concerning that effort. He would have been knocked off in a primary, but I digress. The Senate Judiciary Committee has pushed back votes on judges. In all, he’s holding up the advancement of 21 judicial nominations, along with the confirmation of an additional 32 nominees whose votes are now stalled on the floor (via CNN)[…]

Flake is not going to budge, so it would appear the judicial agenda for this Congress is over. Flake torpedoed it over something that is anathema to the GOP base. He’s a thorn in the side, a perpetual pain in the a** who will reap nothing with this ridiculous stunt. If he thinks sinking conservative judges will garner him gold stars in his potential bid for the presidency—yes, he seems to be mulling a run—this is a massive Never Trump miscalculation. This move should motivate people to hurl beer bottles at Flake. McConnell went deeper into why Flake’s course of action is straight idiocy